Staunchly Sheffield, a city it stuck to even when Warp Records – one of its main clients – abandoned the city, the Republic was strongly influenced by both Russian constructivism and corporatism. It made many cracking record covers. It always, always stood out and they often designed as if they had access to outer space. They even used to have a shop, in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, called The Peoples Bureau For Consumer Information which I think just about summed them up.